


every night (baby) that's where I go

by Metronomeblue



Category: L.A. By Night, Vampire: The Masquerade
Genre: Annabelle and Ellenore-centric by virtue of it being what it is, Annabelle turns Ellenore, Arson, Blood Drinking, Blood Magic, Character Turned Into Vampire, F/F, F/M, Forgive Me, Healthy Relationships, LA By Night said Gay Rights, Multi, Not Canon Compliant, Overexamination of minutiae, Polyamory, Present Tense, Slice of Life, Vampires, against my own will i wrote all of this in the present tense because it felt right, also because I haven't seen the episode where Marc shows up so i don't know too much about him, because I haven't seen season two yet, don't want to do him any injustice, leading up to the Main Event, this is a soft fic because I'm a soft bitch okay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-22
Updated: 2019-06-22
Packaged: 2020-05-16 16:44:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,827
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19322122
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Metronomeblue/pseuds/Metronomeblue
Summary: "You don't know what it's like.""I could, though. I could know it with you, and we could know it together."She smiles into the face of Annabelle’s dawning horror, and says and does not say 'I love you enough to be what you are.'





	every night (baby) that's where I go

**Author's Note:**

> Find My Home decimated me okay. I couldn't help myself. Title is stolen with pleasure from Pearl by Mitski, though if I'd been clever I would've used something from Arsonist's Lullabye bc it's my favorite Hozier song.

There are days Annabelle remembers better than others. Now that she’s a vampire- kindred- undead- whatever, she doesn’t really do days. Nights, yes. But she thinks back sometimes and there are days she cherishes. Like Thursdays. Like one particular Thursday.

Ellenore plays with a d&d group on Thursdays. She’s very passionate about it- as she is with all things- and Annabelle and Marc have both heard some wonderful stories about it. The time their bard became a triceratops, the time their ranger scored a serious hit on a beholder, the time their rogue decided to propose a threesome with the arc villains. They don’t play- they wouldn’t know how, and their interest in rolling dice and doing math is low, if they’re being honest, but it makes Ellenore happy. Usually.

“It’s racism!” She cries, half-laughing, but entirely serious. “It’s fantasy racism and I will not stand for it!” She believes it, Annabelle can see on her face, and her conviction is like sunlight, radiating, sharp. Annabelle sits up, presses her forehead into the warmth of her back, the lovely curved bone of her shoulder blade, and she presses kisses to the span of it, where wings would be if Ellenore had them. “Don’t laugh at me,” she says, half-annoyed. Annabelle doesn’t laugh. 

“I love you,” she says instead. “And I’ll come play with you tonight so you’ll have back-up.” Ellenore leans back a little, resting the side of her head on her own shoulder, and Annabelle can just see the glint of her eyes. 

“Promise you’re not laughing?” 

“Promise. I love you.” 

“I need you.” 

“I’m yours.”

It’s a good night, and Annabelle’s character manages to fit in a quick kiss with Ellenore’s, which was really half the point of coming, anyway. They walk home, across campus from the dorms where Liam lives, holding hands and swinging them like a stupid couple from an old musical. Annabelle feels at peace, feels settled. Marc is at home, waiting, probably blaring 80s hip hop and working on his annotated bibliography. Ellenore is beside her, smiling, warm like a summer night. LA is alive around them, though it won’t be for long. 

The next night they learn about the senator’s building. Marc is the one to suggest vandalism, but Annabelle suggests fire. She always does. “Let’s burn it,” she says, and they’re all so angry, they’re all so furious and tired and _hopeless_ that they agree. The world is going to hell, and sometimes it’s all they can do to keep breathing. Sometimes it’s all you can do to keep moving, to burn and rage and rain hell over the destruction around you. They make molotov cocktails, snatch half-empty alcohol bottles from their friends’ dorms and apartments, take some of the rags from the art room and a lighter from the woodshop classroom. They dress up the way they should, all in black, masked and covered. That doesn’t stop a vampire from knowing them by scent, but they didn’t know back then. They didn’t know anything. 

They take the gasoline the gardeners keep in the shed with the lawnmowers, and they light the building up. It feels like they toss countless bottles, light endless matches, feels like they just scream and scream and scream into the darkness. It blazes. It burns. That night Ellenore sees Annabelle laugh, wreathed in smoke, gasoline sharp on their breath, and she decides that this is the most beautiful she’s ever been. This is how she always wants to see Annabelle, glinting in the firelight, all copper and gold and ruby light on the soft planes of her face. _This is love_ , she thinks. _This is love_. It burns in her as the senator’s building smolders and blazes, devoured by Annabelle and Marc’s and Ellenore’s beautiful, beautiful plan. They run, as the sirens blare and the headlights begin to dance on the buildings at the end of the street. They get away, lose themselves in a crowd in the quad, ditch their black masks under the feet of so many distracted people. They look just like any trio of goths on this campus. Maybe a little more cheerful, maybe a little more mussed and winded, but who can say that that’s not the festival? They wait an hour before going home. Marc is the first to pull around so he can kiss Annabelle, and Ellenore does the same, because it was her plan, it was Annabelle, it was all Annabelle, and it’s _magnificent_. They each loop an arm around her waist as they walk home, pressing kisses to opposite cheeks and murmuring about the future.

A few days later, Annabelle’s future ends.

She comes home, terrified, and Ellenore brings her in, cleans her up, cares for her and feeds her and does not ask questions until the next night, because there are only so many questions one needs to ask after their girlfriend comes home and drinks their blood and sleeps like the dead through the day. 

Everything after that is a whirlwind of noise. The coterie, the Baron, the Blaine gang, the Ministry, the Camarilla, the Anarchs, Carver and werewolves and the protest and the Succubus Club and everything is just so much. _So much_. She ties herself to the ground with the playlist, anchors herself with the familiar songs and the new, and continued, coded, loving contact with Ellenore, sparse, bright and wonderful texts to Marc, and it’s still so much so much so much. She gets a little lost in it, though Ramona helps, Jasper helps. Nelli and Victor help, too, though they also generate endless frustration. 

She comes home, for the first time in three weeks, and sees Elllenore, and it’s like a match inside of her chest. It could be the Flush of Life, but she doesn’t think so. This warmth isn’t supernatural. It’s real. They talk, and they hold hands, and the rain is loud on the roof in a way that comforts her. She’s so full of feeling, so overwhelmed, burning with love and fear and sorrow and grief.

“You don’t know what it’s like-” she says, and she means it to be a warning. She means for it to hurt. Ellenore doesn’t take it as one. She wraps her hands around Annabelle’s and smiles and says, “But I could.”

“I could know it with you, and we could know it together,” she says, and in the same breath what she’s really saying is that no matter how awful it will be for her, it has been that awful for Annabelle. That Annabelle has borne it, and so Ellenore will bear it too, will carry the same weight beside her, and suffer the same hungers and fear the same light and hunt the same shadows. That it will be no less horrible for both of their suffering it, but in both suffering it, they will understand each other. They will know. Ellenore says and does not say _I would be with you always_ , she says and does not say _I would follow you into this particular hell as I have promised of nine general ones_ , she says and does not say, _if you are a monster then I will be a monster beside you_. She smiles into the face of Annabelle’s dawning horror, and says and does not say _I love you enough to be what you are_.

She’s saying more than that, without saying it, and even as Annabelle’s mouth runs wild, protesting and cautioning, her heart is struck deeply, held in a state of awe and love and bitter longing. Ellenore knows. She knows and does not know, and what she doesn’t know she’ll soon learn. Annabelle protests and pushes and denies, but the war never had to be fought. It was won the moment it began. 

The idea of Ellenore as Kindred is at once both exhilarating and frightening- her Ellenore, invincible. Made inviolable and fierce, wild and gentle and dangerous. But Ellenore was all of those things already, really. Just breakable. Just soft. She doesn’t want to turn her. She almost considers asking one of the others, but Jasper would never do it. And she _would_ ask Jasper first, if she was going to ask any of them, if it weren’t for the pain of a Nosferatu’s change. Nelli would talk her out of it, Victor wouldn’t stand for it. She couldn’t bring herself to ask Carver, even now, even knowing, because to ask would be to accept what he’d done to her. To ask would be to condone. She might have asked Ramona, but even that seemed almost too unpredictable. Ellenore loves animals, though. That could work for her. But in the end, Annabelle decides to do it herself. To make Ellenore strong, to make her neatly- but to make her _gently_ , most of all.

She takes up Eva on her offer, gets Carver’s number and promises the white witch a favor in exchange for wards similar to the ones placed over her on the night of her change. She arranges things, a little at a time. Nelli and Victor are busy, X is far away, Jasper is underground. Ramona isn’t paying attention to Ellenore and Marc because Annabelle is there. Nobody has to know until it’s already over. Nobody has to be there. She calls Carver on an old pay phone next to a 7-11 that looks older than her.

“Carver?” She asks bluntly, into the silence on the other side of the line. There’s a sigh, and she’d almost call it relieved.

“Hey babydoll,” Carver says, and the grind of his voice on her ears is... awful. She’s annoyed with him instinctively, and she has to push that away. She can’t hate him right now. Ellenore is more important. 

“Hey,” she says flatly, and there’s a soft, low chuckle from the other end. 

“You don’t have to pretend to like me,” he almost sounds like he’s teasing her, but there’s so much fondness in his voice that it scares her. “What’s bad enough to call me for?” Her breath catches, and she swallows it. She doesn’t need to breathe. She doesn’t need to breathe. 

“I’m going to- I’m going to turn Ellenore.” She can hear the mood change on his side of the phone. She doesn’t know how to describe it, because it’s new to her. It’s a feeling she doesn’t have a name for, somewhere between surprise and not, between worry and pride. It’s soft, and sudden. She’s uncomfortable with it.

“Good for you,” he says, and there’s a quiet kind of regret that strains his voice. “That’s- that’s brave. I’ll give it to you, you’re decisive.”

“It’s the only way we could think of,” she admits, almost against her will. “I don’t have- the rest of the coterie they’d talk me out of it, or they’d refuse to talk about it, and I need to know... how do I do it gently? How do I do it so she’s not hurt? How do I do it?! I don’t actually really know, and I-“ he laughs again, so much affection, and it stings as much as it warms her.

“You’re sweet, babydoll.” He pauses, and Annabelle tries not to rush him. When he speaks again, his voice is low, soft. “You want to drain her, first of all. Drink until she’s almost gone. Almost, that’s the important part- you can’t have her dying or it won’t really work. Then you feed her your blood. A little, but not too little. Enough to really kickstart the change. It won’t be pleasant, it never is, but it’ll happen. Best you have something- someone- to eat for her after, too, or else she’s likely to get a little... feral.” He pauses, and Annabelle almost misses it in the rush to write down what he’s telling her. “You love her?” He asks, and Annabelle nearly drops her notepad with the fury that fills her. 

“Yes!” She hisses. “I love her. More than _anything!_ More than- I love her. You _know_ that!” 

“Good.” He’s quiet for a minute, and she returns to writing, annoyed. “Lot of relationships don’t live past the change. Lot of people get... tired of each other. Or they get angry or sad or old. If you want this to work, you have to try. You have to really try.”

“Have… you ever turned someone you love?” There’s a long silence.

“No,” he says finally. “But I’m old. I’ve seen a lot.” Annabelle nods, forgets he can’t see her. “Good luck, babydoll,” he tells her, and the wistfulness in his voice is almost endearing. Almost. It’s genuine, and that’s more than a lot of people have given her. It’s also sad, and that scares her. 

“Thanks,” she says quickly, then hangs up, panicked. She can still hear him laughing in the split second between. It’s warm in her chest, and she wonders if this is how things will always be between them. She wonders if she’ll ever stop being upset by how much he likes her. She stands in the darkness, watching cars drive by at a speed that is simultaneously reasonable and too fast. She thinks of the way she felt when she woke up, Carver’s voice telling her to ‘hang tight’ and hunger clawing at her skin. She watches the orange streetlamps flicker, watches the tar crack beneath the wheels of cars. She thinks about Jasper, and the Labyrinth, and Tara, and his someone who he’d lost. She thinks about Victoria Ashe and all those dead humans. She thinks about Baron Abrams, and Chris, poor dead Chris, and Isaiah and Marc. She thinks about Victor, never seeing his family for fear. She thinks about Carver. 

Maybe he gave her a gift, she thinks. Maybe he cursed her. Maybe they’re the same. She thinks about Ellenore, so sweet and so full of life, and she imagines her dead, cold and hard and sharp-edged like every other kindred Annabelle has met, and something in her aches. She wishes she could take it back, but she knows better. This isn’t her call. This isn’t her choice to make. Ellenore chose. She saw the darkness, saw the pain and the loss and the cold and she chose to become it rather than succumb to it.

Annabelle thinks of the sun on Ellenore’s face. She thinks of the way Carver spoke, ‘ _then you burn it to the fucking ground,_ ’ and how for a moment he had reminded her of Ellenore. She thinks of her own choices, her own words, and something in her settles. Not everyone loses themselves. Not everyone wastes away or withers.

It’s the “someone to feed on” that worries her most, after that. 

She can do drinking Ellenore’s blood- she has, before, and it was… it was different. It was nothing as casual as the set-up she had where she’d ask people to donate a pint for her ‘medical condition.’ Something about it had been so much more intimate, so much more meaningful. Ellenore’s blood tasted like blood, mostly. All blood was the same kind of overwhelmingly delicious, but sometimes Annabelle could swear she tasted… more. Ellenore tasted sweet. There was something syrupy about her, like honeysuckle nectar or honey or piloncillo. Something pure and unrefined, almost acidic in its sweetness. She could drink for days. 

She can give her blood, too. It would be nothing, for Ellenore. She’d do so much worse for her. It’s the feeding after that worries her. In theory, Ellenore could just feed from her, just take her own blood right back, but whether it would work, Annabelle couldn’t say. She wasn’t sure anyone could. Jasper had made it work for ages, after all, but he’d been a vampire already when he began.

“I could do it,” Marc offers, making jazz hands next to his head. “I have blood.”

“You also have a very protective father,” Annabelle reminds him, and the softness in his face fades a little, his eyes growing tired and sad.

“Yeah,” he agrees. “I guess there’s that.” He slumps down onto the couch next to Ellenore, who leans her head on his shoulder comfortingly. He leans his head right back onto hers. “I keep… forgetting. And then it all comes back.” Annabelle’s heart twists.

“He was trying to keep you safe,” Ellenore offers softly. “He’s your dad. He loves you.”

“I’d rather he loved me in person rather than from across the fucking city,” Marc scoffs, but there’s more pain than anger in it. “I don’t want you getting hurt because of me, though,” he says, and he reaches up to twine his hand with Annabelle’s. “I don’t- living forever, all of this, it isn’t what I want for myself, and I know that for sure, now, but I wish I could help.”

“You help by being here,” she says, and his eyes say he only half believes her. Ellenore reaches up to press his head a little more firmly to hers with one hand.

“You’re doing as much as you can,” she says, in that soft, tender voice she only uses when she’s being honest. “We love you lots. And we’re not going to ask you to do something you can’t or won’t do.” He nods into her grip, and Annabelle takes their empty cups to the kitchen so she won’t have to look at how sad they are because of her.

“You’ll just have to drink from me,” Annabelle calls, tugging absently on a lock of hair. “And if it doesn’t work, I’ll take you out and we’ll find someone you can ask.”

“That’s kinky,” Ellenore calls back across the apartment, and they all laugh, but Annabelle honestly doesn’t know what to do. It had been Ellenore who offered her wrist without fear, without blame, that first night when Annabelle stumbled in covered in blood and broken glass, fangs pricking clumsily at her lips and her fingers raw from scratching at her throat. It was Ellenore who’d bled, and Marc who’d held her steady. And Marc couldn’t bleed for them. Not with Victor’s voice echoing in her ear, not with her own promise lingering. Neither of them can feed on him, no matter what he offers, and they all know it.

Annabelle brings her to Eva, holds her hand the whole time as Eva chants something, dripping her blood into the palm of Ellenore’s other hand and swaying absentmindedly from side to side. There’s a smell like burning hair, and it’s done. Annabelle blinks away tears of blood, and Ellenore hisses, but there’s a feeling of something oppressive over her. There’s a weight in the air around her that makes Annabelle’s heart calm. Eva smiles, her pale face shining like a full moon.

“I won’t tell Jasper about this,” she reassures Annabelle, who takes a moment to catch on.

“Oh! Yes, uh, thank you. That’s really nice of you.” She feels as if it comes out ungrateful, but Eva just nods gently and turns back to the observatory. Ellenore’s hand squeezes hers, and she turns back. There’s something like anticipation on Ellenore’s face. Something like love, something like fear, something like hope.

Annabelle takes her to the coterie’s safe room on campus. There’s room to sleep, no sunlight. It’s safe. She pushes Ellenore back, lays her out over the floor, soft carpet against her back and an artfully subdued ceiling over her. Her fingers shake. Annabelle kisses her, feels the warmth of it, feels the soft, familiar brush of living heat from Ellenore’s body for perhaps the last time. She kisses her cheek, her jaw, her chin…. her neck….

Ellenore breathes. She can feel her heart pounding, thunderous, beautiful, alive, in her ears, in her chest, in her ribs. She can hear Marc teasing her in the back of her head, saying ‘I’m not the only one who gets flustered, huh?’ She can feel Annabelle’s lips on her throat, so soft, like little baby butterfly kisses- and then there are fangs, and her heartbeat is in Annabelle’s mouth, too, and she feels so alive. 

It’s not like an orgasm. Annabelle has given her plenty, and this is different. It’s peace. It’s all the worry and the fear and the anxiety leaving her. It’s all her nerves lighting up, tender and vibrant. If an orgasm was forever, if it was spiritual as well as physical, maybe it would be something like this. But it isn’t. It’s the Kiss. She breathes, she lolls back, limp and pliant under Annabelle, and she can feel her swallow against her neck. Her blood is hot on her skin, and she stretches a little, like a cat. She doesn’t feel any pain. Just softness and light and the most extraordinary thing in every inch of her body. If an orgasm was full-body bliss, it might be like this. Ellenore feels like a rainbow in a soft blue sky. She feels like she’s resting in memory foam and silky, soft blankets. She feels like she’s drifting in a hammock. She feels as if rain is falling on her while all her limbs fall asleep, pleasant static and numbness overtaking her fingers, her toes, her arms and legs. She feels like she’s made of silk and air and love. The world narrows down to Annabelle, sweet and full of fire, her mouth like a soft, warm endless kiss at Ellenore’s throat. She feels, for a moment, as if she can’t get any smaller or softer or hazier. And then Annabelle pulls away, lips wet and red, and the pleasure begins to fade, and Ellenore begins to fade with it.

She wakes to the taste of copper and iron and salt, the faintest trace of sweetness lingering. It was as if someone had dipped a screw in lychee and then put it in her mouth. As the moments passed, the metal taste faded a little, and the weight of her eyelids lessened enough that she could open them. Annabelle. Annabelle’s face, concerned, her dark hair falling like black velvet around their faces. 

She’s hungry. _So_ hungry. The metal taste fades entirely, and she can taste more, now, something soft and mellow, sharp tannins and the same floral-fruit scent filling her mouth. She blinks, and it clicks.

She’s tasting Annabelle’s blood.

It’s wonderful. It worked.

She pushes up on her elbows to kiss Annabelle, one arm coming up, one hand cupping her girlfriend’s beautiful, beautiful face. She feels something like tears in the corners of her eyes, and Annabelle sobs a little into her mouth, reaching up to wipe away the blood in Ellenore’s eyes. Ellenore kisses her again, softer, shorter. She sits up properly, letting Annabelle’s knees fall open over her lap, letting herself be Annabelle’s support as she kneels over her.

“It worked,” Annabelle says, her voice thick with tears and her eyes suspiciously rusted around the edges. “I didn’t kill you. It _worked_.”

“You did kill me,” Ellenore points out, smiling. “You brought me back.”

“I love you,” Annabelle whispers. “I love you, I love you, I love you. _I love you_.”

“I need you,” Ellenore whispers back, breathing it into the curve of Annabelle’s neck. She can smell it, can feel the slow, thick pulse of vitae. She presses her face there, listening to it, loud in her newly supernatural ears. Annabelle’s hands curl into her hair and she sighs, leans into Ellenore’s mouth, lets her head fall back.

“You have me.” Ellenore feels fangs, and she presses into Annabelle’s throat with a slick, fast bite that would make Nelli proud. There is blood between them, flowing into Ellenore’s mouth, barely touching Annabelle’s skin before it’s lapped away. The Beast sates itself heavily, and Ellenore drinks deeply of her lover. It’s odd, almost, for Annabelle to feel the Kiss herself. To go soft and barely capable of holding onto Ellenore’s neck. Her weight is on her knees, straddling her girlfriend’s lap, so she doesn’t fall, but Ellenore’s arms very quickly loop around her waist. She hardly feels it. She is consumed with love and peace and ecstasy, her whole body filled to brimming with sensation and light. Her hands fall lightly, lazily, around Ellenore’s shoulders, anchoring her. Ellenore stops, licks tentatively at the wound, watches it close.

“Belle?” She asks, so softly, so fearfully. Annabelle smiles.

“Forever,” she says, pressing her nose to Ellenore’s.

“Forever,” Ellenore chokes back.

* * *

 

She does tell Jasper first, in the end. The betrayal on his face is painful, but she stands her ground.

“You made her a _monster_ ,” he spits. There is horror in his eyes, shock and anger. Annabelle shakes her head. 

“She asked me to,” she says softly, and reaches for his hand. He pulls it away, despair welling up on his face. “I gave her a choice, and this is what she wanted. Jasper-”

“No.” His voice breaks. “You were supposed to be- you were supposed to be better. You’re supposed to know better.”

“Jasper.” She does grab his hand, and this time he doesn’t yank it back. “I love her. I almost lost her. I’m not you.” His face contorts, painfully. “I am not going to lock her out of my life. I am not going to take her choices from her. She wanted this. I asked her, Jasper. I asked her over and _over_ , and she always said yes. The first person she drank from was me. She hasn’t hurt anyone, because I’ve been able to teach her. Do you know why?”

“Why?” His voice is small, so small, and she grasps his hand between her own. 

“Because you taught me first. You helped me keep my humanity. And I used what you taught me to help her. We can _be_ better,” she pleads with him, holds him so tightly, afraid to lose her dearest, most fragile friend. “We can be better. Together.”

“You hate being this,” he whispers sadly. “You made her like this, too.”

“I don’t hate it anymore. I’m not you,” she repeats, gently, and he nods. “It’s not so bad once you have friends. And I- she’s not your someone, Jasper. I haven’t lost her yet. Now, I- I never will.”

“You can still lose her. We can still lose you.”

“She’s my someone,” Annabelle says softly, pressing her forehead to his. “Marc said no, and I’ll never ask him to change his mind. But she- Ellenore said yes. They’re my _someones_ , Jasper. I can’t lose them.”

“I know,” he says. His nails dig into her shoulders, but she feels the understanding. “I know.”

The first time he meets Ellenore, she blinks at his face. She reaches out a hand, and he flinches back. She shakes his hand. He smiles, just a little. She smiles a lot. His eyes linger, painfully, on her brilliant copper hair, on the softness around her eyes, the glimmer of her fangs. When he speaks to Annabelle, he’s not angry. He’s not angry anymore. He tells her he understands. He tells her he wishes he’d been braver.

* * *

 

She brings Ellenore to the next meeting of the coterie.

Nelli looks over her sunglasses at Ellenore’s soft hair, the split ends, the flyaways. She traces the worn flannel and the secondhand jeans, the thick boots and old shirt. The barely-there eyeshadow, the clear lip balm, the messy eyeliner. She snorts and shakes her head. “First thing’s first,” she says archly. “New wardrobe for both of you. I can’t _stand_ it anymore.” 

Victor’s fury is to be expected.

“You’re not turning Marc,” he says, voice raised. Annabelle scoffs.

“No, I’m _not_. Because I asked him, and he said no. I did this the right way!” Victor gives her a Look, only partially satisfied. She shakes her head. “I’m not turning Marc! I don’t know why you’re still mad at me.”

“What’s ‘the right way,’ Annabelle? What, exactly, did you do here?” His anger is lessened, but there’s something lingering in his tone. 

“I asked,” she says flatly. “I _asked_ , and she said she’d rather be turned than be a ghoul or- or something else. Or dead! She could be dead, Victor! I’d rather she didn’t die!”

“She’s dead _now_ ,” he laughs, darkly. “Man, you really went all-in, huh?” Ellenore smiles at him

“I love her,” she says evenly. “I’m no longer a liability, I’m no longer a threat to your precious Masquerade, and oh, yeah, I’m strong as _fuck_ , now.” Victor laughs again, despite himself.

“Oh good, there are two of them,” Nelli says, with far less heat than might be otherwise in her words.

Ramona  ceases to be a rat, and Ellenore yelps.

“Hey,” the Gangrel says, reaching out a hand. “You must be the girlfriend.”

“Ellenore,” Ellenore supplies, helpfully. “You must be the leader of the Rat Pack.”

“The one and only!” Ramona spreads her arms wide, and the thirteen rats in the room lift their heads. 

Everything calms after that. Well. Everything about Ellenore calms after that. LA never does. It never will. 

The coterie becomes six. 

**Author's Note:**

> anyway happy pride I love vampires and women and wlw rep I actually feel a connection to


End file.
